Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!ncar!ames!amdcad!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!hp4nl!philapd!ssp11!willy
From: willy@idca.tds.PHILIPS.nl (Willy Konijnenberg)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: 'passwd' problems
Keywords: passwd suid root
Message-ID: <171@ssp11.idca.tds.philips.nl>
Date: 6 Feb 89 10:44:41 GMT
References: <1062@unm-la.UUCP> <6833@fluke.COM> <653@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu>
Organization: Philips Telecommunication and Data Systems, The Netherlands
Lines: 40

In article <653@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu> kenf1@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu (Ken Firestone) writes:
>In article <6833@fluke.COM> dcd@tc.fluke.COM (David Dyck) writes:
>>In article <1062@unm-la.UUCP> mcormick@unm-la.UUCP (Patrick McCormick) writes
>>about the passwd program not working correctly except from distrubution floppy:
>
>	1. What other files HAVE to be owned by root and
>	have the suid set?
>
>	2. How do you tell if suid is set?

Ok, this seems to be a common problem.
Here is a list of programs that need to be setuid root:
(maybe incomplete, anybody know what I forgot?)

	df
	login
	mkdir
	passwd
	su

When correctly set, an ls -l says:

	-rwsr-xr-x   1 root    ...
	   ^

To correct it, log out, then login as root and type

	chown root <program>
	chmod 4755 <program>

Note that when your login and su are not setuid root, you cannot
use them to become super user. Only when login is started by init
or when it is setuid root, it has the super-user privileges that
it needs to properly log you in.

Please everybody, check your installation. When you usually work
as root (as I did), you may have never noticed the problem.

-- 
	Willy Konijnenberg		<willy@idca.tds.philips.nl>